Barmaids.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 138, 2 July 1872, Page 3

Barmaids.

A crusty old bachelor has written the following libel on barmaids : B begins barmaid, and B begins beautiful, but it does not therefore follow that all barmaids are beautiful—some are even plain; these, however, are just the ones that don't think so. See the custom a good barmaid attracts ! Mark with what smiles she " greets the coming, speeds the parting," swells who are "spoons" upon her:—how "dears," "loves," "darlings," " duckies," ect., coruscate in her immediate atmosphere; how clever she is, and what a talent she shows in making these ssvells provide her with such trilling articles of jewellery as chains, brooches, bracelets, rings, and lockets; what jealousies and heart-burnings she causes amongst the golden youth by her guileless in decision in the matter of " Sundays out!" I have often wondered what becomes of barmaids after they relinquish that vocation. I don't think many of them subside into landladies, and I have not yet met with an aged barmaid—at any rate so aged as not to be able to fool a number of smart young men. I don't think that barmaids and barmen are in the habit of intermarrying. lam given to understand that barmaids prefer pari uers outside the business—solicitors, bankers' clerks, J.P.'s and such like. When they have attained to this state, do they ever sigh for the charm and abandon of a life at the bar, or wish themselves back again? Or do their husbands 1 Barmaids, like other dangerous classes, have a slang of their own. In pursuit of my studies in that direction I was one day standing at the bar drinking a little, and thinking a little, when there entered one of the golden youth already mentioned. After the usual quasi-sentimontalifcy, she propounded the following rather startling question : " Well, my dear, what'll you poison yourself with now?" This, to me, was a staggerer, but ho evinced not the least concern. la a cheerful, airy voice he answered : " Oh, as before—a glass of mother-in-law." Now I had often heard of a mother-in-law being "the death of a fellow," but I failed to perceive how that article could fatally ali'ecfc him. With timidity I ventured, when the sweet youth had departed from his poison, to enquire of the syren the nature of the mysterious concoction. She gave me such a look ! and I felt small indeed when I learnt that " mother-in-law" was but an innocent mixture of old and bitter ales. I endeavoured to hide my confusion by attempting a mild joke, suited, asl thought, to a barmaid's understanding. "Then stoui-aud-bitter, miss, would be " father-in-law." " Wrong a;>\ in, sir," was the brisk rejoinder ; u lli !'''s siout-and-mild." 1 thanked her for the information, and have carefully avoided the house since. The youngest barmaid can consume a full-grown person's dose of flattery. In I fact they're all good at it, but you must | be careful how you lay it on at first. ! Above all, don't write.